Water Problem

I am planning on brewing an American IPA here soon and have noticed a change in my usual water source. I have been using tap water for all of my brews until now and they have all come out great. Our tap water is actually pretty delicious around here. However, we have had some high water issues at the river recently and I guess the treatment plant has been adding extra chemicals. Either way, when I turn on my tap water (even in the shower) I get this overwhelming smell of bleach!

In John Palmer's book he says that as a general rule if your water tastes and smells good, then it will make good beer. Needless to say I don't want to use the "community swimming pool water" coming out of the tap right now. What are my options?

-Use it anyway and hope for the best?
-Boil it first to drive off the chlorine?
-If I use bottled/distilled water, will that affect my mash at all?

Campden tablets, and ask your water dept for a current Water Quality Report

Campden tablets will remove chlorine and chloramine right away. I use that and a lot of people use that stuff here. You could also buy bottled water but you will probably need to add minerals to it. Last option is a carbon filter but these are good at chlorine removal, not su much for chloramine. Have you ever done a water analysis of your tap water ? If no, the easiest solution would be the campden tablets. Do a search on this forum about those

I don't know if this is a no no, would love feedback

Lighter beers 25% of my water bill is tap, rest i use r.o

Darker maltier beers i do 25% tap, 25% spring, remaining r.o.

Camden does not remove chloramine. Check your local supply and see what they add.
Charcoal filter will remove chlorine if ran slow enough/big enough filter.
Best thing to do is send a sample to Ward Labs.

I thought campden did remove both chlorine and chloramine?
http://www.howtobrew.com/section1/chapter4-1.html

It does, I use it for this. Here is another helpful article from A.J.

acidrain said:

Camden does not remove chloramine. Check your local supply and see what they add.
Charcoal filter will remove chlorine if ran slow enough/big enough filter.
Best thing to do is send a sample to Ward Labs.

Click to expand...

Yes campden does remove chloramine and chlorine

matc said:

Yes campden does remove chloramine and chlorine

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Very cool... learned something new. My previous research said otherwise.

jmcquesten- thanks for the link.

Also yes, campden works. My beers don't have a hint that I use Singapore tap water!

Thanks to all who responded. I went with the Campden tablet method and it worked just fine. I bottled the batch last night and it tasted great going into bottles. Can't wait for this to carb up!

I'm in Michigan and just experienced the same phenomenon. Been brewing about 1yr...all tap water...ipa's, stout, Belgian blonde, ambers, and most recently a Hefeweizen. It was the recent hefeweizen that had a real tartness and a taste that I did not like. I'm not sure it came from my water (I'm not that smart yet) but it did get me researching which made me curious about my water. I looked at my water report from my treatment plant. Nothing spooky as far as I could tell but I made up my mind to go 50% spring water and add gypsum to my next ipa which I did a week ago. It was when cleaning up from brew day that I caught a big bleach smell from my tap water...it about made me sick. I put some in a clean bottle and had SWMBO take a wiff and she got it also. I know this is not always there because as many bottles as I wash I'm sure I would have caught it before.
So I'm not sure water report helps me as my city water profile seems to change with unknown frequency. I think I'm going to do 30-50% spring water from now on to minimize my exposure to the chemical-of-the-month club that my city water seems to be enrolled in.
Sorry for long post...brew on!

Moose_MI said:

It was the recent hefeweizen that had a real tartness and a taste that I did not like. I'm not sure it came from my water

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Probably wasn't your water, I get this all the time when using wheat, actually started a thread here about it, though no point linking as I didn't get many replies. general consensus was it's the yeast, and it very well might be since as the end of my Hefeweizen and Belgian Wit kegs when the beer started clearing the taste went away almost entirely. Still working on this issue. And all my other beers come out perfectly fine no matter how light or dark.


Rev.

Rev2010 said:

Probably wasn't your water, I get this all the time when using wheat, actually started a thread here about it, though no point linking as I didn't get many replies. general consensus was it's the yeast, and it very well might be since as the end of my Hefeweizen and Belgian Wit kegs when the beer started clearing the taste went away almost entirely. Still working on this issue. And all my other beers come out perfectly fine no matter how light or dark.


Rev.

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That's sort of what I came around to as well specific to my tartness in the wheat. The bottles that were in fridge for 10-14 days seem to almost have a little honey along with the clove that was nice....but have one after only a day or so in the fridge and it was really tart. I think some like the tartness because I think wheats are commonly enjoyed "young". i had never had a hefeweizen before brewing one so pay no attention to me :fro: